SugarCOAT

2. Broken Record 🔢

This was starting to feel like a bad idea, but I couldn't move as I stood at the open doors.

"Are you here to audition?" A woman sat at a table covered with papers.

I slowly nodded my head.

"Come on in and sign this sheet."

I took a deep breath and followed her directions. My shaky right hand made it difficult to write. 

"You are number 77." She handed me a sheet of paper. "Go ahead and have a seat near the front row. When your number is called, go on stage and perform."

I quickly asked, "How long will this take?"

"Not long. I believe they're on number 70, right now," the woman answered.

"Where's the restroom?" I asked her.

She pointed over her shoulder. "Just around the corner."

I made a dash for the restroom as my thoughts went ran wild. I don't have to do this. I can go back home and write a song about it. Yes, that sounds like the best thing to do. Five minutes later, I walked out the restroom and ran into Larry. 

"Ay, Jamie!"

Here we go.

Larry asked me, "Have you auditioned, yet?"

"I just got here." I began to walk to the auditorium.

"You got this, girl!" 

Why does he have to be so loud? 

I walked inside the auditorium full of people. It made me very uneasy. Some people wore headsets. Some people wore numbers on their chests. I walked towards the stage and took a seat on the second row. There were people on the stage laughing. The performer must've been a comedian. Four judges sat behind a table. They stood up and applauded the performer.

"Number 75!" A man standing at the steps of the stage called out.

A woman nearly ran into him. "My name is Tammie Dodger. I know I'm going to be on the show."

I turned around to see a few people sitting behind me.

"Are you nervous?"

I quickly looked ahead to see a man sitting on the row in front of me. 

He said, "It's gonna go by fast. Like three minutes at the most."

"Have you already auditioned?" I asked him. 

He narrowed his eyes at me. "This is my show."

I arched my brow. 

He smiled, "I created it."

I politely smiled back.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" He asked me.

"Number 76!" The man by the stage called the next number.

I looked down at my number. This was going by too fast.

"I'm Zeke Rivers. Zell's son? The Rivers Brothers? None of that sounds familiar to you?" He asked me, "What's your talent?"

"Singing."

Zeke said, "When you get up there, don't think about anything else but the emotion you want to portray. Got it?"

"Okay."

Zeke fumbled with something before handing me a business card. "Keep in touch." He got up from his seat and walked out the auditorium.

I looked at the card and almost dropped it. What's wrong with my ears? That was Zell Rivers' son. The Rivers Brothers were a huge band in the 60s and 70s. My parents played their music throughout my childhood. There were five members of The Rivers Brothers. Two of them went solo, but Zell's career skyrocketed. Zachary "Rival" Rivers, his first son, became a rapper. He was very popular in the 90s. Zeke Rivers was known as the famous kid who hung around celebrities in the early 2000s. I remember seeing him on TV at award shows, concerts, in music videos, and magazines. At that time, I was a teenager and extremely invested in boy bands. I had crushes on mostly all of the teen heartthrobs. The thing is Zeke isn't a kid anymore. He's a grown man with grown man features. I cannot believe Zeke Rivers was just talking to me. I looked at the business card to see an email and two phone numbers. I'm pretty sure none of those were his personal contact.